By KYLE WIND
NEW PALTZ — New Paltz school district voters on Feb. 9 will decide the fate of a proposed $49.8 million project to renovate New Paltz Middle School.
The proposal calls for renovating and reformatting the building to meet the needs of a 21st century education, district officials say.
The Board of Education voted 6-1 earlier this month to hold a public referendum on the plan. The vote came after four hours of deliberation, said school board Vice President Donald Kerr, who chairs the district’s facilities committee.
Kerr said board members were concerned about proposing the project when “the economy is in the toilet,” but he believed it was the most fiscally prudent decision to not continue to “kick the can down the road.”
A BUILDING condition survey in 2005 revealed “critical physical deterioration” of the middle school, according to a district presentation on the plan. What district officials called “Band-Aid solutions” costing $254,223 and $160,000 were applied that year and in 2007, respectively.
Kerr said the survey showed the middle school, which is at the corner of South Manheim Boulevard and Main Street, needs $10 million in emergency repairs and that even after they are completed, it probably will need another $10 million in renovations in several years. The presentation of the plan, available on the school district’s Web site, www.newpaltz.k12.ny.us, also says that amount in repairs probably would be needed “every 10 years or so for the next 20-plus years.”
Therefore, Kerr said, because $20 million of the $49.8 million project would be funded with state aid, it will prove wiser in the long run for district residents to finance a “fully renovated, green school” rather than pay just as much in the long term to maintain a shoddy one.
AN OUTLINE of the plan said the 1960s section of the building would be replaced with a new, three-story addition “to provide improved space for student instruction.” The new design would increase instruction space to meet state standards and support a “house” system, which divides schools into smaller communities.
The project would include 58,000 square feet for students and administration; five team multi-use areas; a small gym and a gym storage area; and three classrooms that would be leased to Ulster BOCES, the outline reads.
The plan also calls for relocating the school district’s offices to the site by renovating the 1930s section of the middle school building. Officials noted the district currently pays $87,750 to rent administrative office.
Other benefits of the plan, district officials wrote in the outline, would include updating “existing antiquated infrastructure conditions” to improve the building’s electrical capacity, energy efficiency, plumbing, structural integrity and handicapped accessibility; as well as improving safety by designing a drop-off area to redirect traffic from pedestrians and reconfiguring access to the building to a single entry point.
TO MINIMIZE the project’s impact during tough economic times, Kerr said the district’s business administrator crafted a plan to delay the tax impact until September 2012 by using district reserves in the near term. Then, for the first four years of the 20-year payback period for project’s borrowed money, the district’s property tax levy would increase 1.1 to 1.2 percent. After that, he said, there would be no tax impact because other debt obligations will have ended.
If approved, the building plan would be further developed and submitted to the state Education Department in December 2010; bids would be sought and contracts would be awarded in early 2011; the groundbreaking would occur in June or July of 2011; and the project would be completed by September 2012.
KERR SAID the building will be out of commission during construction, but he noted that school district Superintendent Maria Rice and Ulster BOCES Superintendent Martin Ruglis have developed a plan to ensure students’ education is not compromised.
Sixth-graders would be moved to the district’s Lenape Elementary School and maintain their middle school schedules there, Kerr said; and seventh- and eight-graders would be taught in the Kingston school district’s vacant Tillson Elementary School building, about 6 miles away from New Paltz Middle School.
Kingston school district officials had considered converting the Tillson building into an alternative high school but decided against the plan after investigating the cost of the needed structural work. Superintendent Gerard Gretzinger told the Kingston Board of Education early this year that the work would cost about $1.2 million.
Kerr said the plan for the New Paltz Middle School renovation includes $500,000 for relocation costs but that district officials expect to use $250,000 of that to renovate the building for their own uses in lieu of paying rent to the Kingston school district.
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